Commercial Compliance Hub

13 permits · verified 2026-09-11

What permits do you need to open a childcare centre in Honolulu County?

In short

A childcare centre in Honolulu County, HI has 2 permits that apply to every business of this type, plus 11 more that depend on your premises, signage or how you are set up. City and County of Honolulu, Department of Planning and Permitting charges $2,400 one-time — $400 non-refundable Initial Review fee plus a $2,000 Processing fee for the zoning variance. 4 of the 13 are charged as a range or formula rather than a flat fee. Verified 2026-09-11 against the issuing agencies’ published fee schedules.

The permits at a glance

Permits required, with issuing agency, fee, renewal term and the date each record was last verified against its source
General Business License (not required by Honolulu County)only if it applies to youCity and County of Honolulu, Department of Customer Services, Business License SectionNo feenot applicable2026-09-11
Commercial Building Permit & Certificate of OccupancyCity and County of Honolulu, Department of Planning and PermittingNo feeone-time, per project2026-09-11
Building Plan Review Feeonly if it applies to youCity and County of Honolulu, Department of Planning and Permitting20% of the tentative Building Permit fee (itself calculated from the unpublished Table No. 18-A, based on a preliminary estimated project valuation), capped at $25,000, due upon submission of plans and specifications for review, per ROH 18-6.1(a).one-time, per project2026-09-11
Fire Plans Review Feeonly if it applies to youHonolulu Fire Department, Fire Prevention Bureau10% of the Building Permit fee, payable to the City and County of Honolulu before the building permit is issued; waived entirely where an automatic fire sprinkler system (NFPA 13, 13R, or 13D) is installed, per Fire Code Section 1.12.8, as amended.one-time, per project2026-09-11
Zoning Verificationonly if it applies to youCity and County of Honolulu, Department of Planning and PermittingNo feeone-time, per request2026-09-11
Conditional Use Permit (Minor) — Child or Adult Daycareonly if it applies to youCity and County of Honolulu, Department of Planning and Permitting$400 non-refundable Initial Review fee, plus a Processing fee of $800 plus $300 per acre (or major fraction, .5 or greater) of the project site, capped at $15,000, per the Department's own current application instructions for this specific Minor CUP category (Communication Tower in the P-2/AG-1/AG-2 Districts, Small Meeting Facility, Child or Adult Daycare, PreK-12 School, and minor hotels up to 180 units in the BMX-3 District).one-time, per application2026-09-11
Zoning Varianceonly if it applies to youCity and County of Honolulu, Department of Planning and Permitting$2,400 one-time — $400 non-refundable Initial Review fee plus a $2,000 Processing feeone-time, per application2026-09-11
Special Management Area (SMA) Permit Determinationonly if it applies to youCity and County of Honolulu, Department of Planning and Permitting$150 one-time, per tax map key (TMK) parcelone-time, per property2026-09-11
Articles of Incorporationonly if it applies to youHawaii Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, Business Registration Division$51 one-time filing, including the $1 state archives feeperpetual, but an annual report is due every year2026-09-04
General Business Licence (not required by Hawaii)only if it applies to youHawaii Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, Business Registration DivisionNo feenot applicable2026-09-04
Articles of Organization (LLC)only if it applies to youHawaii Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, Business Registration Division$51 one-time filing, including the $1 state archives feeperpetual, but an annual report is due every year2026-09-04
Annual Reportonly if it applies to youHawaii Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, Business Registration Division$15 a year on paper; a $10 late fee applies per year delinquentannual — due at the end of the calendar quarter containing the entity's own original registration date2026-09-04
Child Care LicenceHawaii Department of Human Services, Child Care Licensing ProgramFee not published — every official application page lists the required forms without stating a dollar amount anywhere1 to 2 years, depending on how long the provider has already been licensed2026-09-04

Fees shown as a range or formula are set that way by the issuing agency — we do not average them into a single number.

How much does it actually cost to permit a childcare centre in Honolulu County?

There is no single figure, and any site quoting one is rounding away the part that matters. Of the 13 records listed for a childcare centre in Honolulu County, HI, 2 apply to every business of this type and 11 are conditional. Adding every fee on the page together would overstate what most operators pay, because it would include permits they never need.

4 of the 13 are charged as a range or a formula set by the issuing agency, and 4 have no fee published at all. The ones that vary:

Building Plan Review Fee: 20% of the tentative Building Permit fee (itself calculated from the unpublished Table No. 18-A, based on a preliminary estimated project valuation), capped at $25,000, due upon submission of plans and specifications for review, per ROH 18-6.1(a).

Fire Plans Review Fee: 10% of the Building Permit fee, payable to the City and County of Honolulu before the building permit is issued; waived entirely where an automatic fire sprinkler system (NFPA 13, 13R, or 13D) is installed, per Fire Code Section 1.12.8, as amended.

Conditional Use Permit (Minor) — Child or Adult Daycare: $400 non-refundable Initial Review fee, plus a Processing fee of $800 plus $300 per acre (or major fraction, .5 or greater) of the project site, capped at $15,000, per the Department's own current application instructions for this specific Minor CUP category (Communication Tower in the P-2/AG-1/AG-2 Districts, Small Meeting Facility, Child or Adult Daycare, PreK-12 School, and minor hotels up to 180 units in the BMX-3 District).

Child Care Licence: Fee not published — every official application page lists the required forms without stating a dollar amount anywhere

Which offices issue these permits in Honolulu County?

Permits for a childcare centre in Honolulu County, HI come from 5 separate offices: City and County of Honolulu, Department of Customer Services, Business License Section, City and County of Honolulu, Department of Planning and Permitting, Honolulu Fire Department, Fire Prevention Bureau, Hawaii Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, Business Registration Division, Hawaii Department of Human Services, Child Care Licensing Program. No single office issues them all, which is why an opening means filing in several places rather than one.

  • City and County of Honolulu, Department of Customer Services, Business License SectionIssues 1 permit on this page: General Business License (not required by Honolulu County)Kapalama Driver Licensing Center, Window #17, 925 Dillingham Blvd., Honolulu, HI 96817 · (808) 768-9700www.honolulu.gov/csd/business-license
  • City and County of Honolulu, Department of Planning and PermittingIssues 6 permits on this page, including Commercial Building Permit & Certificate of Occupancy, Building Plan Review Fee, Zoning Verification650 South King Street, 7th Floor, Honolulu, HI 96813 · (808) 768-8000www.honolulu.gov/dpp
  • Honolulu Fire Department, Fire Prevention BureauIssues 1 permit on this page: Fire Plans Review Fee636 South Street, Honolulu, HI 96813 · (808) 723-7139fire.honolulu.gov/fire-code/permits
  • Hawaii Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, Business Registration DivisionIssues 4 permits on this page: Articles of Incorporation, General Business Licence (not required by Hawaii), Articles of Organization (LLC), Annual Report335 Merchant Street, Room 201, Honolulu, HI 96813 · (808) 586-2727cca.hawaii.gov/breg
  • Hawaii Department of Human Services, Child Care Licensing ProgramIssues 1 permit on this page: Child Care Licence1010 Richards Street, Suite 512, Honolulu, HI 96813 · (808) 587-5266humanservices.hawaii.gov/bessd/child-care-program/child-care-licensing

Is anything about these requirements changing?

No fee applies. The Department of Customer Services' own current Business License page names the complete, fixed set of individual business licenses the City and County of Honolulu issues (Auctioneer, E-GUN, Firearms, Garbage/Refuse, Glass Recycler, Pawn Broker, Peddler, Pedicab, Pepper Spray, Scrap Dealer, Secondhand Dealer, Tear Gas/Obnoxious Substance, Used Vehicle Parts, Wrecking/Salvaging), each priced individually on the Department's own current Fee Table — none of them a general, catch-all business license, and none of them specific to any of this project's ten industries. Hawaii's General Excise Tax Licence, recorded at the state layer, remains the real universal state-level registration every business needs; this county layer adds no general license on top of it.

No fee applies to the base Building Permit figure itself, recorded here as fee: none rather than guessed at. ROH § 18-6.2, read directly, requires a fee for each building permit and 'other fees associated with the administration of the building codes' set by 'Table No. 18-A, set out at the end of this chapter' — a valuation-based fee table this project could not retrieve in any readable form: codelibrary.amlegal.com blocks direct retrieval outright, and Table No. 18-A's own appendix page could not be located among the Wayback Machine captures this project could enumerate for the surrounding chapter, even after individually confirming every neighboring section by its own document ID (see this file's Access Note). The Department's own live online Fee Calculator computes the dollar figure from this same table but only inside non-extractable client-side JavaScript. Two real, confirmed enforcement provisions survive the gap: § 18-6.2(d) triples the fee for work started before a permit is obtained, and § 18-6.2(e) allows the fee to be doubled for an applicant with a history of false statements. No separately published Certificate of Occupancy fee could be found either; it is treated as folded into this same permitting and inspection process. The genuine, confirmed Plan Review Fee and Fire Plans Review formulas layered on top of this same unconfirmed base figure are recorded as their own lines below.

Required whenever a plan or other data must be submitted for review under ROH § 18-4.2; § 18-6.1(b) exempts building permit applications for fences, retaining walls, swimming pools, driveways, or work performed for any city agency. This fee is in addition to, not instead of, the Building Permit fee itself recorded above, and is distinct from the Honolulu Fire Department's own separate 10%-of-building-permit-fee Fire Plans Review recorded below.

Charged whenever plans or specifications are submitted to the Honolulu Fire Department under the Building Code; plans are not approved until this fee is paid. It is a separate, Fire-Department-administered fee from the Department of Planning and Permitting's own 20%-of-tentative-permit-fee Plan Review Fee recorded above, and — like the Building Permit fee it is calculated from — its final dollar amount cannot be computed here because the underlying Building Permit fee table (Table No. 18-A) is not published anywhere this project could retrieve.

No fee applies here — none is published. The Department's own current Zoning Permits page describes this product only as a request for property zoning designations, flood zones, development standards, and use legality, 'submit request through New Zoning Permit on HNL Build' — an online portal this project could not access without an account, and unlike every other zoning permit type on the same page, no instruction PDF or fee schedule exists for it anywhere this project could find.

This is a genuine, specifically named, and currently priced local zoning pathway for a Honolulu childcare facility, layered on top of, not instead of, Hawaii's own state Child Care Licence (Department of Human Services) recorded at the state layer. It applies where 'Child or Adult Daycare' is not a permitted use outright in the property's zoning district and instead requires this Minor Conditional Use Permit; a Presentation to the neighborhood board or community association is also required before submitting the application. A public hearing may be required at the Director's discretion, which extends the review timeframe from 45 to 90 calendar days.

Provides forgiveness from zoning rules where there is hardship, per Charter § 6-1517, confirmed directly on the Department's own current Zoning Permits page. Doubled if the applicant is cited for taking action without first obtaining approval, the same enforcement pattern confirmed across every DPP zoning application this project read.

Applies only to a proposed project on a property within the coastal Special Management Area, not islandwide — the Department's own current SMA Permit Determination form states directly 'There is a standard fee of $150 per tax map key' to determine whether Chapter 25's own Minor or Major SMA permitting requirements apply at all before any permits issue. This project could not find a published fee schedule for the full Minor or Major SMA permit process itself beyond this threshold determination fee, so no further SMA permit fee is asserted here.

The same $51 as an LLC, once the archives fee is included, and the same $25 expedite option.

No fee, beyond the general excise tax licence every business needs anyway. Hawaii's own business action centre, the state's front door for opening a company, treats general excise tax registration as the universal state requirement rather than pointing to any separate general business licence, and no other state page describes one.

Fifty dollars for the filing itself plus a flat $1 state archives fee tacked onto every DCCA filing, for $51 in practice. Expedited processing adds a further $25. A corporation costs the same $51 to form.

There is no single shared filing date in Hawaii — the due date is set entirely by which calendar quarter an entity originally registered in. Register in February and the report falls due every 31 March afterward; register in August and it falls due every 30 September. This has held since 2003, so it is not a recent quirk. Two figures circulate for the fee itself, $15 on the published paper fee schedule and $12.50 in more recent online-filing guidance — filing online appears to be the cheaper channel, but confirm the exact current figure at checkout before relying on either number precisely. Two straight years of non-filing is grounds for involuntary dissolution.

Hawaii licenses group child care centres and homes as a genuine requirement, and separately registers a smaller family child care home caring for three to six unrelated children. No fee is recorded here because none appears anywhere in the department's own application guidance — every page listing the required forms is silent on cost, and the full governing rule could not be read in its entirety to confirm a figure either way. Confirm the current fee, if any, directly with the licensing office before budgeting for it.

Sources

Every figure above was read from one of these government pages on the date shown. Confirmed by Editorial Team.

  1. Business License — the Department of Customer Services' own current page naming the complete, fixed list of individual business licenses it issues (Auctioneer, E-GUN, Firearms, Garbage/Refuse, Glass Recycler, Pawn Broker, Peddler, Pedicab, Pepper Spray, Scrap Dealer, Secondhand Dealer, Tear Gas/Obnoxious Substance, Used Vehicle Parts, Wrecking/Salvaging), including the Peddler definition reaching 'foodstuffs'City and County of Honolulu, Department of Customer Services · primary source · retrieved 2026-09-11
  2. Fee Table — the Department of Customer Services' own current itemized fee schedule pricing every named business license individually, including Peddler and Itinerant Vendor at $27.50/yearCity and County of Honolulu, Department of Customer Services · primary source · retrieved 2026-09-11
  3. Revised Ordinances of Honolulu § 18-6.2, Building permit fees — the fee is set by Table No. 18-A; unpermitted work triples the fee, and a history of false statements can double itCity and County of Honolulu, republished by American Legal Publishing · primary source · retrieved 2026-09-11
  4. Building Permit Fee Calculator — the Department's own current page stating the Plan Review Fee is 20% of the tentative Building Permit Fee (capped at $25,000) per ROH 18-6.1(a), both fees based on project valuation from Table No. 18-ACity and County of Honolulu, Department of Planning and Permitting · primary source · retrieved 2026-09-11
  5. Building Permits — the Department of Planning and Permitting's own current overview and portal page for commercial building permitsCity and County of Honolulu, Department of Planning and Permitting · primary source · retrieved 2026-09-11
  6. Revised Ordinances of Honolulu § 18-6.1, Plan review fees — the plan review fee (20% of the tentative building permit fee from Table No. 18-A, capped at $25,000) and its exemptions for fences, retaining walls, swimming pools, and drivewaysCity and County of Honolulu, republished by American Legal Publishing · primary source · retrieved 2026-09-11
  7. Permits — the Honolulu Fire Department's own current, complete, itemized fee page for every fire-code permit it issues, stating the 2021 edition of NFPA 1 (with State and County amendments) was adopted as the Fire Code of the City and County of Honolulu effective January 3, 2025, and citing the specific amended section for each permit (Place of Assembly $200/year at Section 20.1.1.1; commercial cooking equipment suppression $100 initial/$100 reinspection; Fire Plans Review at 10% of the building permit fee, waived if sprinklered, at Section 1.12.8)Honolulu Fire Department · primary source · retrieved 2026-09-11
  8. Zoning Permits — the Department's own current page listing Zoning Verification, Conditional Use Permit (Minor and Major), Zoning Variance, and Zoning Adjustment, with ordinance cross-references and links to each product's current instruction packetCity and County of Honolulu, Department of Planning and Permitting · primary source · retrieved 2026-09-11
  9. Conditional Use Permit (Minor) — Communication Tower (P-2/AG-1/AG-2), Small Meeting Facility, Child or Adult Daycare, PreK-12 School, and minor BMX-3 hotels, Application Instructions — $400 non-refundable Initial Review fee plus a Processing fee of $800 plus $300/acre (or major fraction), capped at $15,000City and County of Honolulu, Department of Planning and Permitting · primary source · retrieved 2026-09-11
  10. Zoning Variance, Application Instructions — $400 non-refundable Initial Review fee plus $2,000 Processing feeCity and County of Honolulu, Department of Planning and Permitting · primary source · retrieved 2026-09-11
  11. Special Management Area Permit Determination form — states directly 'There is a standard fee of $150 per tax map key' to determine whether ROH Chapter 25 (Special Management Area) permitting applies to a proposed projectCity and County of Honolulu, Department of Planning and Permitting · primary source · retrieved 2026-09-11
  12. Hawaii DCCA — corporation articles of incorporation fee scheduleHawaii Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs · primary source · retrieved 2026-09-04
  13. Hawaii Business Action Center — starting a business, centred on general excise tax registrationHawaii Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs · primary source · retrieved 2026-09-04
  14. Hawaii DCCA — LLC articles of organization fee scheduleHawaii Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs · primary source · retrieved 2026-09-04
  15. Hawaii DCCA — business registration FAQ, the quarter-based annual report due dateHawaii Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs · primary source · retrieved 2026-09-04
  16. Hawaii DHS — child care licensing application processHawaii Department of Human Services · primary source · retrieved 2026-09-04

Related

Commercial Compliance Hub publishes information, not legal advice. Requirements change — confirm anything you rely on with the issuing agency before you file.